← Red Rocks Church Weekend Messages
Red Rocks Church Weekend Messages
A Father’s Day Conversation with Dr. Harv Powers
00:38:53
Week 4 of Summer Lovin'
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Rocks Church. How you feel? You guys sound good. Will you guys help me welcome all the Denver locations? We love you so much. Austin, Texas, joining us live this weekend for Father's Day weekend. We love you guys. Brussels, Belgium. What's happening? Men and women at all of our correctional facilities, we love you. You are family. We believe in you. And all of you who joining us from all kinds of screens all over the world, we're so glad you're with us. Look, I like to say this all the time because if you. If you hang out with us long enough, you're going to find out anyways. We are just a bunch of messed up, imperfect people. But we love to get together like this and pursue a perfect God. And so what that means for you is, is no matter what, like no matter what you've been through, no matter what you're going through, no matter what you believe, like no matter what, in this place, we want you to know you. You are loved and you are welco and you're valued here. We have been praying for you. And so welcome home. Welcome to Red Rocks Church. All right, everybody, high five. Somebody. Have a seat. We'll get this party started. We got any fathers in the house today? Happy Father's Day, Red Rocks. If you've been coming around here, you know, like, I. One of my biggest dreams in life was to be a dad. And so, like, I just absolutely love Father's Day. But. But here's what I know and. And you guys will know this too. Almost. I was thinking about this as I was driving to work today. Almost every holiday, it's like, it could be really cool and really fun and really exciting for somebody and really, really difficult for somebody else. Isn't that true? And I was like, it's about. I'm like, all right. Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day. I don't think St. Patrick's Day counts. I think that's good for everybody. But, um, Mother's Day, Father's Day, like, it's true, right? For some, it's a really, really exciting weekend. And for some, it's a really difficult weekend. And. And I just want to say that no matter what, this weekend is for you. And here's the thing. Isn't this true, Red Rocks? For some of us, it's both, right? It's. It's really exciting because you had a great dad and he's still with you and you're gonna get to celebrate him this weekend. And what a fun weekend. Or. Or maybe you are a dad and you have great relationships with your children, and so this is a great weekend. But then there is the opposite side of that, right? And so I know for a lot of people, you may not have had that great dad experience growing up. Maybe you didn't have a dad at all. Maybe you had one that was abusive instead of protective, that left, that wasn't there or was there, but not there, and distant and didn't care. And, you know, there's stories. Nobody had it perfect, right? We all know that, Church, right? Like, nobody had a perfect childhood. But I do know that today is really good for some and really tough for some. And then for a bunch of us, it is. It's both. And so. But here's what we know. We do know this, that we still have a heavenly father that is worth celebrating and praising this Father's Day weekend. Can you put that first verse up for me? See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. We are his children. And. And so no matter what the relationship is between family members, friends, whatever's going on, what, anything in life this weekend, we know we have a heavenly father that's worth celebrating. And if Father's Day weekend is difficult for you because of, you know, any of the things we talked about or any of the things we didn't for any reason, would you put that, that, that side screen up? I would just encourage you. Take a picture of the screen, take these verses with you, take them into your quiet time this week. Read these verses, pray these verses over yourself, over your family, and just never forget, like you are God's child and he loves you, and you couldn't lose his love if you tried. And he is with you right now, and he will give you wisdom and guidance. And God's power is perfect. In our weakness, God does invite us to come to him for anything he can do, more than we could ever ask, think, or imagine. And with our God, nothing is impossible. And so, as his children, we got a lot to celebrate on Father's Day weekend. Amen. Church. All right, Church. I am so excited to introduce to you a friend of mine that, that we're going to have a conversation today. And when I say his name, church, I want you guys to go crazy at every single location. If this is your church. You've heard me talk about this guy for a long time, probably seven, eight plus years. I'll often just tell you some weird story and then go, yeah, it's all messed up. And then I talked to Harv, and everything worked out right. He is my counselor that I've been talking to for about eight years, I think now. And he's become a great friend, and he's just an amazing man of God. And I'm so excited that you guys get to hang out with him today. Church, can you give it up for my counselor, my friend, the one and only Dr. Har Powers. Oh, Harv.
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Hey, John. Good to be here, man.
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You know, it's fun to get to talk to you at my office for once.
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I know. Seriously, I can't wait for the questions, you know?
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Guys, bring out the couch. I'd like you to lay down. There's some things I want to go over with you. Harv. Hey, before we get started, I do want to say this. I was telling some of the staff members earlier, and I just want to say to our entire church, there's a small group of people in this world that I would honestly look at and tell you if it weren't for just a handful of people. I'm pretty sure I'm probably not even a pastor today. And, Harv, you are one of those people in my life, and I'm so grateful. I'm so thankful. You've been so good to me and my family and our church family. So thank you. We love you.
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Well, love you and Red Rocks and my privilege to walk alongside you, brother.
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Okay, Harv. Well, we got a lot to talk about. You want to talk some Father's Day?
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We are. We're going to talk about many things. One of the things I'm excited about, Sean, is just the real and honest conversation we can have. You know, as a dad, it's easy to carry so much guilt, and. And this isn't going to be a conversation that puts more guilt on dads. I'm hopeful that it will be encouraging. Offering hope and insight.
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No, Agree. So, Harb, we're going to. We'll get serious here in a second. But we were both talking about this earlier, and we thought, well, let's start out with something funny before it gets too heavy.
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Absolutely.
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And so we said, let's share. What is one of your maybe dad fail moments. Not something that's like going to, you know, put your kids in counseling for 20 years. We don't want to know that.
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My kids are already in counseling, Sean. Sorry about that.
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But, like, one that you can kind of look back at now and laugh about.
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Oh, man, there's so many of them, but one stood out. My youngest Daughter Hannah, when she was in elementary school, was kind of scared. She had heard that someone had tried to break in some house in our neighborhood. And she was afraid someone was going to break in in the middle of the night and just was anxious and worried. I remember going into her bedroom, scooping her up, a little heart was beating. And I said, you know, Hannah, dad will keep you safe. And what she said to me was, dad, if you're asleep at night and someone breaks in, how will you know? And I had this great insightful moment where I said, God gives dads special ears to hear things so they can protect their daughter. And she calmed right down, went to sleep. And then about a year and a half later, the smoke alarm went off at night. And I slept through the entire thing. And she said to me, dad so much, her special ears. It was one of those moments where I was heroic and then at the same time was a guy that just slept through the smoke alarm.
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That's awesome. Well, you know, you and I had talked about, you know, we'll share something funny.
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How about for you?
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Well, it's funny. I don't know if it's funny, Harv. You tell me. I was having dinner with my family last night, and my three boys are at the table, and the cousins and aunt and uncle and just a party. And I said to the boys, I said, hey, I'm talking to Harv tomorrow at church. And he wants me to talk about, like, kind of a dad fail. And my oldest son, Ethan, was actually getting up from the table as I was asking this question. True story, Harv. And I go, so do you guys have, like, any memory of me, like, doing something, like, kind of stupid?
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Everybody raised their hand, right?
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My son goes. He goes, dad, I'm so sorry. I gotta be somewhere at 6, but I'll text you a list.
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Oh, nice, nice.
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I go, there's a list.
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Nice.
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There's not a list. And he's like, oh, really? And he just goes. He's like, oh, what about the time you grounded me and took away my phone and said I was faking being sick cause I wouldn't go to school? And then later, mom took me to the ER and I had 105 temperatures.
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Oh, nice. I know, totally.
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And I'm like. And then. And then Ashton's sitting next to him. And Ashton goes, yeah. And what about the time you told me I was being a baby and I was walking on my heels all the time? And then mom took me to the ER and had two broken bones? In my foot. And I was like, okay, my bad, kids.
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Nice.
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So what I'm saying is our next one on one, I'll be talking about how I've been treated for Father's Day
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or your kids, Right, either one. You know, Sean, it's true about being a dad, isn't it? There are these wonderful moments, and then as mere mortals, we also fail.
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Yeah, yeah, 100%. Harv, tell us about. We said it earlier, there's no perfect family, no perfect upbringing.
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That's right.
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Tell us about your upbringing, your dad, what was that like for you?
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You know, all of our story with fathering begins with our own dad. And my dad, give you a little snapshot of him, was born in 1930, right as the Great Depression was starting to warm up. And his dad was a coal miner in the interior of West Virginia and died in a mining accident six days before he was born. So my dad grew up really hard without a dad and kind of scrabbled and worried about poverty all of his life. So he had this tremendous work ethic, which he transferred to me. But I also carried this financial stress and used alcohol to cope with a lot of that stress off and on throughout our time. So my dad set a great example in some ways, but in other ways, he was kind of absent and didn't give me enough fathering because he didn't have it to give.
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When you say didn't give you enough fathering, what are you thinking when you say that?
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Well, a lot of times, you know, we think about being a dad as all or none. You were a good dad or a terrible dad. For my dad, he was giving me the best that he had, no doubt about that. But he. But he didn't have a lot of that in his own life. So he set a good example, but he wasn't able to be present. He wasn't able to be even spiritually present for me or to guide me or to really understand. So in many ways, I felt like I grew up having to figure it out for myself.
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And what do you think? What do you think that did to you for. I don't know, you know, for the rest of your life? What were the implications that you found this many years later dealing, you know, with those things?
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You know, what I would say is those kind of experience shape sometimes our best qualities. So for me, as an example, a great work ethic from my dad, it also built a resilience in me and a tendency to be self starting, figure it out on my own. And those are great qualities. Inside. But it also impacted me in ways that I always felt like something was missing that only a dad can give a son. And I had to seek that out in other places.
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Okay, so you said something there. I would love to. I know we've got a lot of. Lot of current dads.
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Yes.
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We have a whole bunch of people who want to be.
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Want to be dads.
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What are things that you could tell us? This is what a dad needs to do sort of for a daughter and maybe for a son. And how is that different?
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Yeah, both ways. I think dads have a special gift of God to be able to provide sort of a stability and a strength in families. Dads have a way of centering and orienting both sons and daughters along that line. I think in addition to that, we have the ability to see our kids at different developmental ages and begin to kind of call out of them the things that we see that only a parent, a mom, or a dad. But, you know, moms can't do dadness, just like dads can't do mom ness. We have something special to bring to the table along that line.
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Do you think. Do you think a lot of church, Just so you know, I know we're saying a lot to dads. Please know that, you know the deal. So much of this carries over to dads, moms, step parents, step parents, grandparents, foster parents, mentor. I mean, all the whole thing. Do you find that a lot of us are trying to be parents while still dealing with our own parent wounds?
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I don't think there's any other kind of a parent or a dad. We're always trying to deal with things that impacted us growing up. And what I would say is one of the things about wisdom and growing is what we examine, we can begin to transform. So some of the things that were missing for me growing up actually become part of my passion that I brought to the table in a redemptive way to my family and to my kids. So I would encourage our listeners, no matter what your journey is, examine how it impacted you and in God's hands, transform it so you can give something that's completely different. I think that's redemptive influence.
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And so let's just say that, you know, obviously a lot of people just resonated with what you just said. Can you give us, like, one or two practical steps to start doing what you just said?
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Yeah, well, one of the things is to begin to think over our shoulder a little bit about how our upbringing impacted us. And that's not to blame our Parent or a dad. It's more to kind of create understanding and awareness. And then as we are able to understand that, we can engage it in a redemptive way. If we don't. If we don't examine it, we often transmit some of the very things that we experienced growing up that we wish we didn't have. So if we turn to God in that, we can transform it rather than transmit.
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Okay. Is that the. Is that where you find people doing the whole. I'm not going to repeat what I've experienced. I'm not going to be like my mom was. I'm not going to be like what my dad was, and then you find yourself doing those exact things.
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Yeah. Sometimes we can see it surface, and if we can kind of have the light go on and step back and begin to go, where did that come from? What do I understand about that? That's where we can transform it into a redemptive thing.
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Okay. And this may just be something that I dealt with, but I didn't have. I didn't have an upbringing where I went. I want to repeat what I saw.
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Yes.
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Right. And. And I think that would be a. You know, that would be true for a lot of people.
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That was my experience in many ways, too.
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Can you. Can you be a good father and. And honestly, for the whole church, say, can you be a good mother? Can you be a good parent when you've never seen it modeled in a way that you think you would want it to look like?
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You know, often we're afraid of that. If we didn't have a good model, that means there's something flawed or missing or we're missing a chip. I would say, actually redemptively, often what we didn't have becomes our passion that we can bring to the table to give a different kind of experience to our kiddos. And I think that's called redemptive influence. That because of what we experience, we bring something different to the table.
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Yeah.
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Which is at the heart of the gospel. Right. Yeah. That's what Jesus is about in our lives. Right. Transforming us.
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You know, we've talked so much about my. My life and. Yeah.
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Talk about that.
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Well, I just. I just resonate so much with what you just said and don't want to have a counseling session right now. Harv.
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Sorry. That's where we're headed, Sean.
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Okay. That's fine. I actually did a podcast. I'll answer your question. I did a podcast during a book release last year, and it was with a counselor. I won't say who? And I thought I was going on to do an interview about the book, about several of these. And we go on there, and she goes, okay, we're gonna say action in about two minutes. And just so you know, this is an actual counseling session between me and you, and the world is watching. And I went, what? And she counseled me in real time right there.
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In real time.
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Right. I was asking all this stuff anyways. What'd you ask me?
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Amnesia already, Right. Yeah. I was wondering, on your reflection, I know you have. How your upbringing impacted you and what the redemptive elements of that have been.
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Yeah. You know, it's funny because I've always been. I've always said my family growing up, like, we. We were able to play the. The poor me, the pity card, like, on an Olympic level. So I always sort of grew up feeling just the negatives. Like, you know, those of you who may not know, but, you know, I haven't met my dad. He found out my mom was pregnant when she was 17 as a heroin addict and moved to another state, never to be seen again. And just a weird deal. Right. And so I did. I grew up with a bunch of the. I must not be valuable. I must not be worth anything. I must, you know, that stuff. Um, but what to what you were just saying, I also don't know many people who would tell you, like. Like, my two things growing up is I wanted to be a professional baseball player, and I wanted to be a dad.
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Yeah, I hear you.
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And, like, not many kids, like, those are their two things, but I think it was me feeling already at a young age, the things I wish I had.
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Yes.
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You know, I wish I had someone who was there. I wish I had someone who would play with me after school. I wish I had someone who would teach me things. I wish. And so it's made me, like, I can't wait to be a dad, even
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more committed to those things. Yeah.
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And so, like, I love it, like, I can hardly look at you right now, and it's not because I don't like you. It's because I was trying to play basketball with my three boys last night and can literally barely move my neck. But, like, I love being a dad. And I think if there's anything that, you know is redemptive in some of the stuff maybe that I went through as a kid, it's that I do get to change that. We get to change that. We could change our family lineage. We could change it, like, from here on out, it'll be Different.
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You know, one statement that I would love our listeners to take away is we're not bound to repeat what we didn't receive.
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Oh, that's good, Harv.
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When we turn to God, he can transform that, and it creates a redemptive wisdom. I feel the same way. I love being a dad, and I came to the table to say I want to create a different story for my kids.
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Yeah. Oh, do you think. Do you think if you didn't have what you would consider sort of a. I had a great mom and dad, and they stayed together and both loved me. I feel like you hardly. You don't hear that story that often.
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No, you don't anymore. I know.
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Does it cause us to have insecurities? Like, I feel like we have them, and I think we feel guilty because we have them. And I guess I'm just asking you, is it normal? Is it natural that, like, yeah, we went through some stuff growing up, and so of course we're going to have insecurities when it comes to being a parent?
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Yes, absolutely. And one of the things I would say about being a parent, mom or dad, is it's one of those things you can read a lot about and think you know what you're talking about until you have a kid. And it changes everything.
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Changes everything.
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Oh, man, it does. So, you know, parenting is one of those things you learn by doing, including with mistakes. There's no doubt about it.
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I was certain everybody in the grocery store were terrible parents until I had children.
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Yes, I understand.
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And then I was like, oh, dear God, forgive me.
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And you thought you had good advice for all of them until you had kids. Right.
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Okay. Okay. This is a real question. I know somebody's gonna be thinking this question right now, this weekend, for whatever reason, and we don't have. I won't list them all, because then I'll miss some reason for whatever reason. There's. There's a single mom raising children right now, and she's hearing us talk about how good dads are for kids and the roles that they can play for sons and daughters. And they're going, what do I do now?
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Yes.
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I don't have that for my kids.
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And I would say, in addition, there may be men out there who can't or haven't had kids. Same thing. And one of the ideas is fathering is bigger than biology. It's not just bound to a biological relationship. I know for me, Sean, and I think it's probably true for you, there were key men who showed up at the Right time that weren't biologically related to me, that played a role and gave me a piece of fathering. So I would say to that single mom, look for men around you and around your kiddos, a coach, a teacher, and really form a relationship. Recognizing that some fathering isn't biologically bound. It's by a good man showing up at the right time in someone's life, it can change their trajectory.
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That's awesome.
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That was true for me.
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What was that you just said? Fathering is bigger than biology.
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It's bigger than biology.
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That's fantastic.
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Yeah. It's about the relationship.
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Yeah.
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So, you know, over the years, talking to people about influences in their life, males, you know, sometimes it's a coach, sometimes it's a teacher. For me, one of the key people was a scout master who saw something in me and encouraged me in a way that I really needed at that time. And, and sometimes I wonder. Those individuals may not even know the impact that they had.
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B
What would you say to someone who's watching this and they're raising kids, but they didn't have a father figure that necessarily gave them a blueprint on how to do things? And they're going, I've never seen this done the way I want it to be done. I don't know if I can do it. And. And it's happening in real time.
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Yes.
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What do you say to someone who's just in that position of dear God, help.
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Welcome to the club of messy parenting. First of all, normalize that. I do. And you know, I'm a psychologist, and sometimes I have no idea how to meet my kids at a particular time. So you have to give yourself permission to have some grace and be present, do your best. And sometimes after the fact, you say, you know, I blew that to your kids. Here's what I would do differently. But it's a big club, Sean. We're all a member of that.
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B
Yeah. What, Harv, for you, what were some of the really difficult parts of parenting that you didn't see coming?
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A
You know, I think developmental transitions were the hardest part. You know, you have an infant, changes your world upside down, and then you kind of get in a groove and know how to do it. And then they become a two year old and all the rules change and they have their own personality and they want to wear flip flops in a snowstorm. You know, this emerging person. And those transitions are hard because all the rules change. And then you get that ironed out a little bit, and then they become tweeners. You know, they want to be 14. And earlier they idealized you as a parent, thought you were the wisest person around. All of a sudden, when they had tweeners in adolescence, your IQ drops. You know nothing about sex, fashion, spirituality. And that's hard to adjust to. So I would say those transitions were always the hardest.
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B
Okay, so we've also got a lot of dads.
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We do.
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And people who want to be dads, tell us three things, give us three things that we could do. You go, hey, if those of you dads, man, we want to encourage you, want to give you a little hope, give you a little help, give you a few things to think about this weekend. How can we be better dads?
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You know, the first thing that I would say, and this is, man, high leverage, is to be present. Your kids need more than your provision, they need your presence. So as dads, we're often thinking about how do we provide for our family, create security, et cetera. And that's all an important thing. But kids need way more than that. So commonly what kids want is our presence that we can hang with them, be present with them, see them, be authentic, be real with them. And if we're present with our kids, it bonds them to us. And that's what we want through every stage of parenting. A second thing that I would say along that line, in addition to being present, is this second thing is learning to ask better questions. So one of the recessive genes in every parent, mom or dad, but dads is we talk too much, we tend to want to lecture and go on and on and on and on and our kids glaze over and so on. If we can learn to ask questions and listen. Now, the questions that I would say that we need to learn to ask are kind of open ended questions, not how was your day? Fine.
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Period. Yeah, I was just going to say, I was just going to say I feel like me and Jill ask lots of questions and we get lots of one word answers.
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Yes, so.
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So does that mean we're just asking the wrong questions?
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Yes, essentially we need to learn to ask it, like, what was the best part of your day? Or tell me about something that happened today that touched your heart or scurred you, or who do you want to be closer to among your friends that really you're not right now? So the kids will start to think out loud, but we have to resist the urge to give them advice or try to fix them listening so that they open up more.
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B
Okay, so this wasn't on our notes, but this Is something that you and I talked about a while ago. And I just. I thought this would be cool as you just said this. I thought of it. There's a lot of people in the church that are dealing with kids, like you said in those. Some of those transitions, right.
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They're starting to get older.
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They just hit teenage years, or they're just, you know, now they're about to go from high school to college or like there's these. And we do as parents, we're like, I keep telling you what I want you to do and become and be. Because I think if I don't, then, you know, you're screwed. But how many times do I tell them versus I think at one point you were telling me, like, stop telling
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them what they already know. Yeah. You know, we have to understand as parents, John, as you know, our attempt to guide or tell or lecture or to instruct, it comes from a good place. We're trying to protect them, help them, not make the mistakes that we did growing up, get ahead of the game. Nothing wrong with that. Except when we lecture too much, our kids disengage. The other thing is we have to face the reality. Some things, especially as our kids step into early adulthood, is they have to learn some things on their own, just like we did. And that's hard as a parent.
- [27:45]
B
Okay, is this crazy? I have this thought every time my boys walk out of the house and I know they're about to go get in their car and drive somewhere. I feel like I have to say it one more time. Like, drive safe. Put it in four wheel drive. If there's snow, do the thing. Like, I'm not trying to drive them crazy, but in my mind, I go, what if I don't say it the 72nd time and something goes wrong and then it was my fault as a parent.
- [28:09]
A
Boy, that's talk about a transition. When our kids start driving, right? And what we have to face, and we all know this logically, is we have limited control to protect our kids. So we do need to instruct them. But when we overstate it, they just roll their eyes and it kind of bounces off of them. So what I would say is we want to give them some good guidance, but more than that, we want to kind of give them some space to learn on their own and also debrief them. Like all kids have an accident, you know, if we ask everybody, raise your hand if you've had a fender bender or you got a ticket somewhere along the line, you know, all of us did that. But more, we want to debrief that. What do you learn from this? What would you do differently? Harvest the learning with your kids that opens up a conversation. You know, there's a resource. There's an old book that just came to mind, Shawn, called How to talk so your kids will listen and how to listen so your kids will talk. It's an old one. You can find it on Amazon. It'd be a good one to kind of think through this.
- [29:05]
B
I'm on it. All right. Be present, ask better questions, and listen. Number three.
- [29:09]
A
This is a really hard one. It's very, very hard. Have fun with your kids. You know, having fun and enjoying each other's company creates bonding. So what I would say is give yourself permission to be light hearted, have inside jokes, tease each other, and create experiences where the kids love to be with you. I think that's one of the marks of good parenting, is your kids actually want to be with you as adults.
- [29:35]
B
Okay. And one last question on that one. What if you're a parent and you're going, I want to do that, Harv. I want to have fun with the kids and. And I don't know how to engage them.
- [29:48]
A
Yes. What I would say is, a lot of times, be a good observer and be curious. If you look at your kids and see what they really like to do, even though it may not be your thing often, if you can join them in it, it will begin to open up a dialogue along that line. Another thing I would say, so Jill
- [30:07]
B
and I have to play video games.
- [30:08]
A
You do sometimes play video games or go to that concert with a band that you would never go to otherwise. That would be something along that line. Love that and be curious about that. Be a learner of your kids regarding what they enjoy and where their energy is.
- [30:23]
B
Oh, I love that. Okay, Harv, we're going to get close to land in this plane. Of the things we've talked about, is there anything that you go, oh, we should have stayed there for a second, or, you know, a thought popped up, or you go, hey, I want to just kind of leave the church with. With one thought based on the things we've talked about?
- [30:43]
A
Well, one of the. One of the things that's been a theme in our time together is sometimes because we've been wounded around fathering or parenting, either one, we feel like we're inadequate. And I. I would hope people would have that myth dispelled. Oftentimes, our woundedness, when we deal with it in God's hands gives us an Unusual wisdom and compassion and influence that we wouldn't have otherwise. That's the nature of redemptive influence. So I would want to encourage people that whatever your background is, you have something important to bring to the table. Empowered by the Father.
- [31:15]
B
Amen. That's good, Harv. Thank you so much. I have. I've asked Harv if he would pray a prayer of blessing.
- [31:24]
A
Yes.
- [31:25]
B
Over the dead. So can we do that?
- [31:27]
A
I would love to do that. And if you're a dad or a stepdad or a mentor, would you stand? I want to pray for you all. So on every site and location, please stand, recognizing your fatherhood, your mentorship, being a stepdad or a mentor. So let's pray. Father, I pray for every dad, grandfather, stepfather, mentor who is listening. I pray that you would strengthen each of us, Lord. Encourage us. Help us to steward our influence with humility, courage, tenderness, wisdom. Give us grace to be present with those that we mentor and influence in our kids in particular, give us patience to listen. Help us with that tendency reflexively to lecture too much. Turn on our insight and wisdom, and help us to listen deeply, recognizing that we give a gift to those that we invite, influence. They will remember us. And also they will be encouraged to be a generation of dads themselves. We pray this and ask for your power to bless us in that, Lord. Amen.
- [32:37]
B
Amen. Thank you, Harv. Do you guys give Harv a hand? Love you. Hey, Church, would you stand up with me at. At all the locations? I just want to say a few things as we close. If. If this is a really good weekend for you and you have a good relationship with your dad and he's still around, celebrate. Buy him some shoes. You know, I'm saying, buy the man some shoes. Be nice to your dad. Don't give him a list of things he screwed up. If. If. But if this is. If this is tough, if this weekend is difficult, for whatever reason, maybe you want to be a dad and can't have lost a father. Don't have the relationship you wish you did with your father right now, whatever the case may be. Can you guys put up that side screen again of all those verses that we had asked that I had kind of encouraged people to take a screenshot of. If you didn't do that, I just want to encourage you to do that now. And I just want to remind you that we have a heavenly father who says, I will be a father to the fatherless. So for every one of you, You just. Sometimes it's like, man I've been. I've been watching, right? Been watching people celebrate Father's Day. Been watching families do things, and you didn't have that opportunity. Sorry. My heart breaks for you. But I do want you to know that he's a father to the fatherless. He says, I'll do more in your life than you could ever ask, think or imagine. He's still the miracle working God. He still says, step into my throne room of grace with confidence in your time of need so that you can receive the grace and the mercy. And so here would be my challenge. If this weekend's tough, take some of these. Remind yourself of these. Pray these over yourself. Pray these over your family. Pray these over the future family you want to have. But then my challenge would be step into. Step into his throne room. Because when you do that, there is grace and there is peace, there is joy, there is strength. And the truth is, regardless of what your upbringing looked like, you can spend time with your father this weekend, and he would love to spend time with you. Let me pray for you. God, I thank you so much for every single person a part of this church family. I thank you for the dads, I thank you for the moms. I thank you for those who have had great experiences with all this stuff and for those who haven't. God, we just pray that you would speak to every single one of us this weekend, that you would remind every single one of us, no matter what our story or situation, you are our heavenly Father, we are your child, that you love us so much. You let your son die on a cross to pay the price for our sins. You love us so much. We couldn't lose that love if we tried. God, I pray that some people this weekend would step into your presence for the very first time, maybe just the first time in a long time, and they would be reminded how much you love them, how much you care, how much you're with them. I thank you, God. I thank you for what you're doing with everyone's eyes closed. I just want to ask two questions and just give you a chance to respond to what God might be doing in your life this weekend. The first question is this. If you're 100% honest, maybe there's a part of this weekend experiencing Father's Day that's. That's exciting, but there's also a part of it that brings back painful memories that. That is not fun to think about, still bring, still triggers some things in you. And today you would go, I just want to acknowledge that and say, Heavenly Father, would you be a father to me today? Would you give me the grace and the peace and the mercy and maybe even the ability to forgive in Jesus name? If that's you, raise your hand. I'm just going to pray for a bunch of you. Yeah, a bunch of us. Second question is this. I can't think of a better way to celebrate Father's Day weekend than for some of you to have the opportunity to put your faith in your Heavenly Father for the very first time. Time. And if you're hearing this or listening to this, it's not by accident. God doesn't do coincidences. And if you've never asked him to be the Lord of your life, he says all you have to do is we just ask him for forgiveness. He says if you repent, he's faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. He makes us perfect in God's sight. And all we have to do is just say, I want it. I want to experience your grace, your forgiveness, your salvation. We have our sins forgiven, we get his spirit inside of us and then we get to go to be with him in forever in heaven. And if you're at any of our locations or watching online and today you say, that's me, would you respond? If you're in a building, raise your hand right now. I'm gonna pray for you. You say, I want to ask him to forgive me of my sins. I want his spirit living in my life and I want heaven forever. If that's you, raise your hand. And if you're online, you can just put in the chat and someone will start praying for you now. And God, I thank you for the hands that are raised. I thank you for the lives that are being changed. I thank you God for, for those of us who can say this is a fun weekend, I thank you for all that. And God, I pray for every single person who this is a tough weekend for that you would remind them how much you love them and how much you're with them and the plans that you have for them. We love you, God. We thank you for your son Jesus. I pray for peace and joy and freedom and healing and, and forgiveness to take place on all sorts of levels for every single person here. We love you, God. And it is our honor to worship you now in Jesus name. And everybody said, amen, church. I love you. Let's worship.